Chapter 5 - Unraveling the Web
By forty-eight hours after the precinct confrontation, the news of the investigation at St. Jude Academy broke across Chicago's financial news networks. Federal agents executed a search warrant on Julian Vance's administrative offices, seizing servers, hard drives, and physical records spanning a decade.
My penthouse had transformed into an operational war room. Sarah Sterling and her team of forensic accountants had set up monitors across my dining table, cross-referencing the encrypted files on Eleanor's flash drive with public corporate filings.
Maya sat in the center of it all, quietly pointing out specific ledger entries that had eluded even my senior accountants.
"Look at line item 402-B," Maya pointed with her pen, leaning over a spread sheet. "He didn't mask the transfers as school maintenance. He disguised them as vendor payments to an off-shore textbook distribution company registered in the Cayman Islands. The company's managing director is listed under a pseudonym—an anagram of his mother's maiden name."
Sarah looked up from her screen, her eyes wide with admiration. "How did you spot that?"
"Math is just patterns," Maya said simply, repeating the phrase she had told Sophie on the sidewalk. "When someone tries to force a pattern that doesn't belong, it leaves a seam. You just have to follow the seam."
I walked over, placing a fresh mug of hot cocoa next to her notepad. "You have an extraordinary mind, Maya. Eleanor saw it years ago."
Maya looked down at the mug, steam rising into the air. "She was the only adult who ever treated me like I was capable of doing something big. When she got sick, I felt like the only person who cared about the truth was gone."
"She wasn't gone," I said softly, sitting in the chair next to her. "She left the truth with you because she trusted you to hold onto it until we were ready to find it."
At that moment, Sophie ran into the room holding her homework folder. "Maya! Look! I got an A-minus on my practice test today! Mr. Vance's substitute didn't even have to help me!"
Maya’s face lit up with a genuine, unburdened smile. She took the paper, reviewing the red-inked corrections with careful attention. "See? I told you. You just needed to stop being afraid of the numbers."
The front doorbell chimed. I opened it to find Detective Miller of the Chicago Financial Crimes Unit standing in the hallway, carrying a heavy leather briefcase.
"Mr. Harrison," Miller said, removing his hat. "We just executed an arrest warrant for Julian Vance at O'Hare Airport. He was attempting to board a flight to Zurich under a fake passport."
A quiet sigh of relief washed through the room.
"However," Detective Miller added, his expression darkening slightly as he stepped inside. "We uncovered something else during the server seizure. Julian wasn't acting alone. He had a silent partner on the St. Jude Board of Trustees—someone who had access to your family's personal estate accounts."
May you like
My stomach dropped. "Who?"
Miller pulled a file from his briefcase and handed it to me. "The digital signatures confirming the transfer of funds away from Maya's trust fund were co-signed by your own corporate managing partner, Arthur Pendelton."
